Rose à Charlitte

CHAPTER XI.
WHAT ELECTION DAY BROUGHT FORTH.

"Oh, my companions, now should we carouse, now we should strike the ground with a free foot, now is the time to deck the temples of the gods."

Ode 37. Horace.

It was election time all through the province of Nova Scotia, and great excitement prevailed, for the Bluenoses are nothing if not keen politicians.

In the French part of the county of Digby there was an unusual amount of interest taken in the election, and considerable amusement prevailed with regard to it.

Mr. Greening had been spirited away. His unwise and untrue remark about the inhabitants of the township Clare had so persistently followed him, and his anger with the three women at the Sleeping Water Inn had at last been so stubbornly and so deeply resented by the Acadiens, who are slow to arouse but difficult to quiet when once aroused, that he had been called upon to make a public apology.

This he had refused to do, and the discomfited Liberals had at once relegated him to private life. His prospective political career was ruined. Thenceforward he would lead the life of an unostentatious citizen. He had been chased and whipped out of public affairs, as many another man has been, by an unwise sentence that had risen up against him in his day of judgment.

The surprised Liberals had not far to go to seek his successor. The whole French population had been stirred by the cry of an Acadien for the Acadiens; and Agapit LeNoir, nolens volens, but in truth quite volens, had been called to become the Liberal nominee. There was absolutely nothing to be said against him. He was a young man,—not too young,—he was of good habits; he was well educated, well bred, and he possessed the respect not only of the population along the Bay, but of many of the English residents of the other parts of the county, who had heard of the diligent young Acadien lawyer of Weymouth.

The wise heads of the Liberal party, in welcoming this new representative to their ranks, had not the slightest doubt of his success.

Without money, without powerful friends, without influence, except that of a blameless career, and without asking for a single vote, he would be swept into public life on a wave of public opinion. However, they did not tell him this, but in secret anxiety they put forth all their efforts towards making sure the calling and election of their other Liberal candidate, who would, from the very fact of Agapit's assured success, be more in danger from the machinations of the one Conservative candidate that the county had returned for years.

One Liberal and one Conservative candidate had been elected almost from time immemorial. This year, if the campaign were skilfully directed in the perilously short time remaining to them, there might be returned, on account of Agapit's sudden and extraordinary popularity, two Liberals and no Conservative at all.

Agapit, in truth, knew very little about elections, although he had always taken a quiet interest in them. He had been too much occupied with his struggle for daily bread for mind and body, to be able to afford much time for outside affairs, and he showed his inexperience immediately after his informal nomination by the convention, and his legal one by the sheriff, by laying strict commands upon Bidiane and her confederates that they should do no more canvassing for him.

Apparently they subsided, but they had gone too far to be wholly repressed, and Mirabelle Marie and Claudine calmly carried on their work of baking enormous batches of pies and cakes, for a whole week before the election took place, and of laying in a stock of confectionery, fruit, and raisins, and of engaging sundry chickens and sides of beef, and also the ovens of neighbors to roast them in.

"For men-folks," said Mirabelle Marie, "is like pigs; if you feed 'em high, they don' squeal."

Agapit did not know what Bidiane was doing. She was shy and elusive, and avoided meeting him, but he strongly suspected that she was the power behind the throne in making these extensive preparations. He was not able to visit the inn except very occasionally, for, according to instructions from headquarters, he was kept travelling from one end of the county to the other, cramming himself with information en route, and delivering it, at first stumblingly, but always modestly and honestly, to Acadien audiences, who wagged delighted heads, and vowed that this young fellow should go up to sit in Parliament, where several of his race had already honorably acquitted themselves. What had they been thinking of, the last five years? Formerly they had always had an Acadien representative, but lately they had dropped into an easy-going habit of allowing some Englishman to represent them. The English race were well enough, but why not have a man of your own race? They would take up that old habit again, and this time they would stick to it.

At last the time of canvassing and lecturing was over, and the day of the election came. The Sleeping Water Inn had been scrubbed from the attic to the cellar, every article of furniture was resplendent, and two long tables spread with every variety of dainties known to the Bay had been put up in the two large front rooms of the house.

In these two rooms, the smoking-room and the parlor, men were expected to come and go, eating and drinking at will,—Liberal men, be it understood. The Conservatives were restricted to the laundry, and Claude ruefully surveyed the cold stove, the empty table, and the hard benches set apart for him and his fellow politicians.

He was exceedingly confused in his mind. Mirabelle Marie had explained to him again and again the reason for the sudden change in her hazy beliefs with regard to the conduct of state affairs, but Claude was one Acadien who found it inconsistent to turn a man out of public life on account of one unfortunate word, while so many people in private life could grow, and thrive, and utter scores of unfortunate words without rebuke.

However, his wife had stood over him until he had promised to vote for Agapit, and in great dejection of spirit he smoked his pipe and tried not to meet the eyes of his handful of associates, who did not know that he was to withhold his small support from them.

From early morn till dewy eve the contest went on between the two parties. All along the shore, and back in the settlements in the woods, men left their work, and, driving to the different polling-places, registered their votes, and then loitered about to watch others do likewise.

It was a general holiday, and not an Acadien and not a Nova Scotian would settle down to work again until the result of the election was known.

Bidiane early retreated to one of the upper rooms of the house, and from the windows looked down upon the crowd about the polling-booth at the corner, or crept to the staircase to listen to jubilant sounds below, for Mirabelle Marie and Claudine were darting about, filling the orders of those who came to buy, but in general insisting on "treating" the Liberal tongues and palates weary from much talking.

Bidiane did not see Agapit, although she had heard some one say that he had gone down the Bay early in the morning. She saw the Conservative candidate, Mr. Folsom, drive swiftly by, waving his hat and shouting a hopeful response to the cheering that greeted him from some of the men at the corner, and her heart died within her at the sound.

Shortly before noon she descended from her watch-tower, and betook herself to the pantry, where she soberly spent the afternoon in washing dishes, only turning her head occasionally as Mirabelle Marie or Claudine darted in with an armful of soiled cups and saucers and hurried ejaculations such as "They vow Agapit'll go in. There's an awful strong party for him down the Bay. Every one's grinning over that story about old Greening. They say we'll not know till some time in the night—Bidiane, you look pale as a ghost. Go lie down,—we'll manage. I never did see such a time,—and the way they drink! Such thirsty throats! More lemonade glasses, Biddy. It's lucky Father Duvair got that rum, or we'd have 'em all as drunk as goats." And the girl washed on, and looked down the road from the little pantry window, and in a fierce, silent excitement wished that the thing might soon be over, so that her throbbing head would be still.

Soon after five o'clock, when the legal hour for closing the polling-places arrived, they learned the majority for Agapit, for he it was that obtained it in all the villages in the vicinity of Sleeping Water.

"He's in hereabouts," shouted Mirabelle Marie, joyfully, as she came plunging into the pantry, "an' they say he'll git in everywheres. The ole Conservative ain't gut a show at all. Oh, ain't you glad, Biddy?"

"Of course she's glad," said Claudine, giving Mrs. Corbineau a push with her elbow, "but let her alone, can't you? She's tired, so she's quiet about it."

As it grew dark, the returns from the whole, or nearly the whole county came pouring in. Men mounted on horseback, or driving in light carts, came dashing up to the corner to receive the latest news from the crowd about the telephone office, and receiving it, dashed on again to impart the news to others. Soon they knew quite surely, although there were some backwoods districts still to be heard from. In them the count could be pretty accurately reckoned, for it did not vary much from year to year. They could be relied on to remain Liberal or Conservative, as the case might be.

Bidiane, who had again retreated up-stairs, for nothing would satisfy her but being alone, heard, shortly after it grew quite dark, a sudden uproar of joyous and incoherent noises below.

She ran to the top of the front staircase. The men, many of whom had been joined by their wives, had left the dreary polling-place, which was an unused shop, and had sought the more cheerful shelter of the inn. Soft showers of rain were gently falling, but many of the excited Acadiens stood heedlessly on the grass outside, or leaned from the veranda to exchange exultant cries with those of their friends who went driving by. Many others stalked about the hall and front rooms, shaking hands, clapping shoulders, congratulating, laughing, joking, and rejoicing, while Mirabelle Marie, her fat face radiant with glee, plunged about among them like a huge, unwieldy duck, flourishing her apron, and making more noise and clatter than all the rest of the women combined.

Agapit was in,—in by an overwhelming majority. His name headed the lists; the other Liberal candidate followed him at a respectful distance, and the Conservative candidate was nowhere at all.

Bidiane trembled like a leaf; then, pressing her hands over her ears, she ran to hide herself in a closet.

In the meantime, the back of the house was gloomy. One by one the Conservatives were slipping away home; still, a few yet lingered, and sat dispiritedly looking at each other and the empty wash-tubs in the laundry, while they passed about a bottle of weak raspberry vinegar and water, which was the only beverage Mirabelle and Claudine had allowed them.

Claude, as in honor bound, sat with them until his wife, who gloried in including every one within reach in what she called her "jollifications," came bounding in, and ordered them all into the front of the house, where the proceedings of the day were to be wound up with a supper.

Good-humored raillery greeted Claude and his small flock of Conservatives when Mirabelle Marie came driving them in before her.

"Ah, Joe à Jack, where is thy doubloon?" called out a Liberal. "Thou hast lost it,—thy candidate is in the Bay. It is all up with him. And thou, Guillaume,—away to the shore with thee. You remember, boys, he promised to swallow a dog-fish, tail first, if Agapit LeNoir went in."

A roar of laughter greeted this announcement, and the unfortunate Guillaume was pushed into a seat, and had a glass thrust into his hand. "Drink, cousin, to fortify thee for thy task. A dog-fish,—sakerjé! but it will be prickly swallowing."

"Biddy Ann, Biddy Ann," shrieked her aunt, up the staircase, "come and hear the good news," but Bidiane, who was usually social in her instincts, was now eccentric and solitary, and would not respond.

"Skedaddle up-stairs and hunt her out, Claudine," said Mrs. Corbineau; but Bidiane, hearing the request, cunningly ran to the back of the house, descended the kitchen stairway, and escaped out-of-doors. She would go up to the horseshoe cottage and see Rose. There, at least, it would be quiet; she hated this screaming.

Her small feet went pit-a-pat over the dark road. There were lights in all the windows. Everybody was excited to-night. Everybody but herself. She was left out of the general rejoicing, and a wave of injured feeling and of desperate dissatisfaction and bodily fatigue swept over her. And she had fancied that Agapit's election would plunge her into a tumult of joy.

However, she kept on her way, and dodging a party of hilarious young Acadiens, who were lustily informing the neighborhood that the immortal Malbrouck had really gone to the wars at last, she took to the wet grass and ran across the fields to the cottage.

There were two private bridges across Sleeping Water just here, the Comeau bridge and Rose à Charlitte's. Bidiane trotted nimbly over the former, jumped a low stone wall, and found herself under the windows of Rose's parlor.

Why, there was the hero of the day talking to Rose! What was he doing here? She had fancied him the centre of a crowd of men,—he, speech-making, and the cynosure of all eyes,—and here he was, quietly lolling in an easy chair by the fire that Rose always had on cool, rainy evenings. However, he had evidently just arrived, for his boots were muddy, and his white horse, instead of being tied to the post, was standing patiently by the door,—a sure sign that his master was not to stay long.

Well, she would go home. They looked comfortable in there, and they were carrying on an animated conversation. They did not want her, and, frowning impatiently, she uttered an irritable "Get away!" to the friendly white horse, who, taking advantage of one of the few occasions when he was not attached to the buggy, which was the bane of his existence, had approached, and was extending a curious and sympathetically quivering nose in her direction.

The horse drew back, and, moving his ears sensitively back and forth, watched her going down the path to the river.

CHAPTER XII.
BIDIANE FALLS IN A RIVER.

George Meredith.

Five minutes later, Agapit left Rose, and, coming out-of-doors, stared about for his horse, Turenne, who was nowhere to be seen.

While he stood momentarily expecting to see the big, familiar white shape loom up through the darkness, he fancied that he heard some one calling his name.

He turned his head towards the river. There was a fine, soft wind blowing, the sky was dull and moist, and, although the rain had ceased for a time, it was evidently going to fall again. Surely he had been mistaken about hearing his name, unless Turenne had suddenly been gifted with the power of speech. No,—there it was again; and now he discovered that it was uttered in the voice that, of all the voices in the world, he loved best to hear, and it was at present ejaculating, in peremptory and impatient tones, "Agapit! Agapit!"

He precipitated himself down the hill, peering through the darkness as he went, and on the way running afoul of his white nag, who stood staring with stolid interest at a small round head beside the bridge, and two white hands that were clinging to its rustic foundations.

"Do help me out," said Bidiane; "my feet are quite wet."

Agapit uttered a confused, smothered exclamation, and, stooping over, seized her firmly by the shoulders, and drew her out from the clinging embrace of Sleeping Water.

"I never saw such a river," said Bidiane, shaking herself like a small wet dog, and avoiding her lover's shocked glance. "It is just like jelly."

"Come up to the house," he ejaculated.

"No, no; it would only frighten Rose. She is getting to dislike this river, for people talk so much against it. I will go home."

"Then let me put you on Turenne's back," said Agapit, pointing to his horse as he stood curiously regarding them.

"No, I might fall off—I have had enough frights for to-night," and she shuddered. "I shall run home. I never take cold. Ma foi! but it is good to be out of that slippery mud."

Agapit hurried along beside her. "How did it happen?"

"I was just going to cross the bridge. The river looked so sleepy and quiet, and so like a mirror, that I wondered if I could see my face, if I bent close to it. I stepped on the bank, and it gave way under me, and then I fell in; and to save myself from being sucked down I clung to the bridge, and waited for you to come, for I didn't seem to have strength to drag myself out."

Agapit could not speak for a time. He was struggling with an intense emotion that would have been unintelligible to her if he had expressed it. At last he said, "How did you know that I was here?"

"I saw you," said Bidiane, and she slightly slackened her pace, and glanced at him from the corners of her eyes.

"Through the window?"

"Yes."

"Why did you not come in?"

"I did not wish to do so."

"You are jealous," he exclaimed, and he endeavored to take her hand.

"Let my hand alone,—you flatter yourself."

"You were frightened there in the river, little one," he murmured.

Bidiane paused for an instant, and gazed over her shoulder. "Your old horse is nearly on my heels, and his eyes are like carriage lamps."

"Back!" exclaimed Agapit, to the curious and irrepressible Turenne.

"You say nothing of your election," remarked Bidiane. "Are you glad?"

He drew a rapid breath, and turned his red face towards her again. "My mind is in a whirl, little cousin, and my pulses are going like hammers. You do not know what it is to sway men by the tongue. When one stands up, and speaks, and the human faces spreading out like a flower-bed change and lighten, or grow gloomy, as one wishes, it is majestic,—it makes a man feel like a deity."

"You will get on in the world," said Bidiane, impulsively. "You have it in you."

"But must I go alone?" he said, passionately. "Bidiane, you, though so much younger, you understand me. I have been happy to-day, yes, happy, for amid all the excitement, the changing faces, the buzzing of talk in my ears, there has been one little countenance before me—"

"Yes,—Rose's."

"You treat me as if I were a boy," he said, vehemently, "on this day when I was so important. Why are you so flippant?"

"Don't be angry with me," she said, coaxingly.

"Angry," he muttered, in a shocked voice. "I am not angry. How could I be with you, whom I love so much?"

"Easily," she murmured. "I scarcely wished to see you to-day. I almost dreaded to hear you had been elected, for I thought you would be angry because we—because Claudine, and my aunt, and I, talked against Mr. Greening, and drove him out, and suggested you. I know men don't like to be helped by women."

"Your efforts counted," he said, patiently, and yet with desperate haste, for they were rapidly nearing the inn, "yet you know Sleeping Water is a small district, and the county is large. There was in some places great dissatisfaction with Mr. Greening, but don't talk of him. My dear one, will you—"

"You don't know the worst thing about me," she interrupted, in a low voice. "There was one dreadful thing I did."

He checked an oncoming flow of endearing words, and stared at her. "You have been flirting," he said at last.

"Worse than that," she said, shamefacedly. "If you say first that you will forgive me, I will tell you about it—no, I will not either. I shall just tell you, and if you don't want to overlook it you need not—why, what is the matter with you?"

"Nothing, nothing," he muttered, with an averted face. He had suddenly become as rigid as marble, and Bidiane surveyed him in bewildered surprise, until a sudden illumination broke over her, when she lapsed into nervous amusement.

"You have always been very kind to me, very interested," she said, with the utmost gentleness and sweetness; "surely you are not going to lose patience now."

"Go on," said Agapit, stonily, "tell me about this—this escapade."

"How bad a thing would I have to do for you not to forgive me?" she asked.

"Bidiane—de grâce, continue."

"But I want to know," she said, persistently. "Suppose I had just murdered some one, and had not a friend in the world, would you stand by me?"

He would not reply to her, and she went on, "I know you think a good deal of your honor, but the world is full of bad people. Some one ought to love them—if you were going to be hanged to-morrow I would visit you in your cell. I would take you flowers and something to eat, and I might even go to the scaffold with you."

Agapit in dumb anguish, and scarcely knowing what he did, snatched his hat from his head and swung it to and fro.

"You had better put on your hat," she said, amiably, "you will take cold."

Agapit, suddenly seized her by the shoulders and, holding her firmly, but gently, stared into her eyes that were full of tears. "Ah! you amuse yourself by torturing me," he said, with a groan of relief. "You are as pure as a snowdrop, you have not been flirting."

"Oh, I am so angry with you for being hateful and suspicious," she said, proudly, and with a heaving bosom, and she averted her face to brush the tears from her eyes. "You know I don't care a rap for any man in the world but Mr. Nimmo, except the tiniest atom of respect for you."

Agapit at once broke into abject apologies, and being graciously forgiven, he humbly entreated her to continue the recital of her misdeeds.

"It was when we began to make bombance" she said, in a lofty tone. "Every one assured us that we must have rum, but Claudine would not let us take her money for it, because her husband drank until he made his head queer and had that dreadful fall. She said to buy anything with her money but liquor. We didn't know what to do until one day a man came in and told us that if we wanted money we should go to the rich members of our party. He mentioned Mr. Smith, in Weymouth, and I said, 'Well, I will go and ask him for money to buy something for these wicked men to stop them from voting for a wretch who calls us names.' 'But you must not say that,' replied the man, and he laughed. 'You must go to Mr. Smith and say, "There is an election coming on, and there will be great doings at the Sleeping Water Inn, and it ought to be painted."' 'But it has just been painted,' I said. 'Never mind,' he told me, 'it must be painted.' Then I understood, and Claudine and I went to Mr. Smith, and asked him if it would not be a wise thing to paint the inn, and he laughed and said, 'By all manner of means, yes,—give it a good thick coat and make it stick on well,' and he gave us some bills."

"How many?" asked Agapit, for Bidiane's voice was sinking lower and lower.

"One hundred dollars,—just what Claudine had."

"And you spent it, dearest child?"

"Yes, it just melted away. You know how money goes. But I shall pay it back some day."

"How will you get the money?"

"I don't know," she said, with a sigh. "I shall try to earn it."

"You may earn it now, in the quarter of a minute," he said, fatuously.

"And you call yourself an honest man—you talk against bribery and corruption, you doubt poor lonely orphans when they are going to confess little peccadilloes, and fancy in your wicked heart that they have committed some awful sin!" said Bidiane, in low, withering tones. "I think you had better go home, sir."

They had arrived in front of the inn, and, although Agapit knew that she ought to go at once and put off her wet shoes, he still lingered, and said, delightedly, in low, cautious tones, "But, Bidiane, you have surely a little affection for me—and one short kiss—very short—certainly it would not be so wicked."

"If you do not love a man, it is a crime to embrace him," she said, with cold severity.

"Then I look forward to more gracious times," he replied. "Good night, little one, in twenty minutes I must be in Belliveau's Cove."

Bidiane, strangely subdued in appearance, stood watching him as, with eyes riveted on her, he extended a grasping hand towards Turenne's hanging bridle. When he caught it he leaped into the saddle, and Bidiane, supposing herself to be rid of him, mischievously blew him a kiss from the tips of her fingers.

In a trice he had thrown himself from Turenne's back and had caught her as she started to run swiftly to the house.

"Do not squeal, dear slippery eel," he said, laughingly, "thou hast called me back, and I shall kiss thee. Now go," and he released her, as she struggled in his embrace, laughing for the first time since her capture by the river. "Once I have held you in my arms—now you will come again," and shaking his head and with many a backward glance, he set off through the rain and the darkness towards his waiting friends and supporters, a few miles farther on.

An hour later, Claudine left the vivacious, unwearied revellers below, and went up-stairs to see whether Bidiane had returned home. She found her in bed, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.

"Claudine," she said, turning her brown eyes on her friend and admirer, "how did you feel when Isidore asked you to marry him?"

"How did I feel—miséricorde, how can I tell? For one thing, I wished that he would give up the drink."

"But how did you feel towards him?" asked Bidiane, curiously. "Was it like being lost in a big river, and swimming about for ages, and having noises in your head, and some one else was swimming about trying to find you, and you couldn't touch his hand for a long time, and then he dragged you out to the shore, which was the shore of matrimony?"

Claudine, who found nothing in the world more delectable than Bidiane's fancies, giggled with delight. Then she asked her where she had spent the evening.

Bidiane related her adventure, whereupon Claudine said, dryly, "I guess the other person in your river must be Agapit LeNoir."

"Would you marry him if he asked you?" said Bidiane.

"Mercy, how do I know—has he said anything of me?"

"No, no," replied Bidiane, hastily. "He wants to marry me."

"That's what I thought," said Claudine, soberly. "I can't tell you what love is. You can't talk it. I guess he'll teach you if you give him a chance. He's a good man, Bidiane. You'd better take him—it's an opening for you, too. He'll get on out in the world."

Bidiane laid her head back on her pillow, and slipped again into a hazy, dreamy condition of mind, in which the ever recurring subject of meditation was the one of the proper experience and manifestation of love between men and the women they adore.

"I don't love him, yet what makes me so cross when he looks at another woman, even my beloved Rose?" she murmured; and with this puzzling question bravely to the fore she fell asleep.

CHAPTER XIII.
CHARLITTE COMES BACK.

J. F. H.

The last golden days of summer had come, and the Acadien farmers were rejoicing in a bountiful harvest. Day by day huge wagons, heaped high with grain, were driven to the threshing-mills, and day by day the stores of vegetables and fruit laid in for the winter were increased in barn and store-house.

Everything had done well this year, even the flower gardens, and some of the more pious of the women attributed their abundance of blossoms to the blessing of the seeds by the parish priests.

Agapit LeNoir, who now naturally took a broader and wider interest in the affairs of his countrymen, sat on Rose à Charlitte's lawn, discussing matters in general. Soon he would have to go to Halifax for his first session of the local legislature. Since his election he had come a little out of the shyness and reserve that had settled upon him in his early manhood. He was now usually acknowledged to be a rising young man, and one sure to become a credit to his nation and his province. He would be a member of the Dominion Parliament some day, the old people said, and in his more mature age he might even become a Senator. He had obtained just what he had needed,—a start in life. Everything was open to him now. With his racial zeal and love for his countrymen, he could become a representative man,—an Acadien of the Acadiens.

Then, too, he would marry an accomplished wife, who would be of great assistance to him, for it was a well-known fact that he was engaged to his lively distant relative, Bidiane LeNoir, the young girl who had been educated abroad by the Englishman from Boston.

Just now he was talking to this same relative, who, instead of sitting down quietly beside him, was pursuing an erratic course of wanderings about the trees on the lawn. She professed to be looking for a robin's deserted nest, but she was managing at the same time to give careful attention to what her lover was saying, as he sat with eyes fixed now upon her, now upon the Bay, and waved at intervals the long pipe that he was smoking.

"Yes," he said, continuing his subject, "that is one of the first things I shall lay before the House—the lack of proper schoolhouse accommodation on the Bay."

"You are very much interested in the schoolhouses," said Bidiane, sarcastically. "You have talked of them quite ten minutes."

His face lighted up swiftly. "Let us return, then, to our old, old subject,—will you not reconsider your cruel decision not to marry me, and go with me to Halifax this autumn?"

"No," said Bidiane, decidedly, yet with an evident liking for the topic of conversation presented to her. "I have told you again and again that I will not. I am surprised at your asking. Who would comfort our darling Rose?"

"Possibly, I say, only possibly, she is not as dependent upon us as you imagine."

"Dependent! of course she is dependent. Am I not with her nearly all the time. See, there she comes,—the beauty! She grows more charming every day. She is like those lovely Flemish women, who are so tall, and graceful, and simple, and elegant, and whose heads are like burnished gold. I wish you could see them, Agapit. Mr. Nimmo says they have preserved intact the admirable naïveté of the women of the Middle Ages. Their husbands are often brutal, yet they never rebel."

"Is naïveté justifiable under those circumstances, mignonne?"

"Hush,—she will hear you. Now what does that boy want, I wonder. Just see him scampering up the road."

He wished to see her, and was soon stumbling through a verbal message. Bidiane kindly but firmly followed him in it, and, stopping him whenever he used a corrupted French word, made him substitute another for it.

"No, Raoul, not j'étions but j'étais" (I was). "Petit mieux" (a little better), "not p'tit mieux. La rue not la street. Ces jeunes demoiselles" (those young ladies), "not ces jeunes ladies."

"They are so careless, these Acadiens of ours," she said, turning to Agapit, with a despairing gesture. "This boy knows good French, yet he speaks the impure. Why do his people say becker for baiser" (kiss) "and gueule for bouche" (mouth) "and échine for dos" (back)? "It is so vulgar!"

"Patience," muttered Agapit, "what does he wish?"

"His sister Lucie wants you and me to go up to Grosses Coques this evening to supper. Some of the D'Entremonts are coming from Pubnico. There will be a big wagon filled with straw, and all the young people from here are going, Raoul says. It will be fun; will you go?"

"Yes, if it will please you."

"It will," and she turned to the boy. "Run home, Raoul, and tell Lucie that we accept her invitation. Thou art not vexed with me for correcting thee?"

"Nenni" (no), said the child, displaying a dimple in his cheek.

Bidiane caught him and kissed him. "In the spring we will have great fun, thou and I. We will go back to the woods, and with a sharp knife tear the bark from young spruces, and eat the juicy bobillon inside. Then we will also find candy. Canst thou dig up the fern roots and peel them until thou findest the tender morsel at the bottom?"

"Oui," laughed the child, and Bidiane, after pushing him towards Rose, for an embrace from her, conducted him to the gate.

"Is there any use in asking Rose to go with us this evening?" she said, coming back to Agapit, and speaking in an undertone.

"No, I think not."

"Why is it that she avoids all junketing, and sits only with sick people?"

He murmured an uneasy, unintelligible response, and Bidiane again directed her attention to Rose. "What are you staring at so intently, ma chère?"

"That beautiful stranger," said Rose, nodding towards the Bay. "It is a new sail."

"Every woman on the Bay knows the ships but me," said Bidiane, discontentedly. "I have got out of it from being so long away."

"And why do the girls know the ships?" asked Agapit.

Bidiane discreetly refused to answer him.

"Because they have lovers on board. Your lover stays on shore, little one."

"And poor Rose looks over the sea," said Bidiane, dreamily. "I should think that you might trust me now with the story of her trouble, whatever it is, but you are so reserved, so fearful of making wild statements. You don't treat me as well even as you do a business person,—a client is it you call one?"

Agapit smiled happily. "Marry me, then, and in becoming your advocate I will deal plainly with you as a client, and state fully to you all the facts of this case."

"I daresay we shall have frightful quarrels when we are married," said Bidiane, cheerfully.

"I daresay."

"Just see how Rose stares at that ship."

"She is a beauty," said Agapit, critically, "and foreign rigged."

There was "a free wind" blowing, and the beautiful stranger moved like a graceful bird before it. Rose—the favorite occupation in whose quiet life was to watch the white sails that passed up and down the Bay—still kept her eyes fixed on it, and presently said, "The stranger is pointing towards Sleeping Water."

"I will get the marine glass," said Bidiane, running to the house.

"She is putting out a boat," said Rose, when she came back. "She is coming in to the wharf."

"Allow me to see for one minute, Rose," said Agapit, and he extended his hand for the glass; then silently watched the sailors running about and looking no larger than ants on the distant deck.

"They are not going to the wharf," said Bidiane. "They are making for that rock by the inn bathing-house. Perhaps they will engage in swimming."

A slight color appeared in Rose's cheeks, and she glanced longingly at the glass that Agapit still held. The mystery of the sea and the magic of ships and of seafaring lives was interwoven with her whole being. She felt an intense gentle interest in the strange sail and the foreign sailors, and nothing would have given her greater pleasure than to have shown them some kindness.

"I wish," she murmured, "that I were now at the inn. They should have a jug of cream, and some fresh fruit."

The horseshoe cottage being situated on rising ground, a little beyond the river, afforded the three people on the lawn an uninterrupted view of the movements of the boat. While Bidiane prattled on, and severely rebuked Agapit for his selfishness in keeping the glass to himself, Rose watched the boat touching the big rocks, where one man sprang from it, and walked towards the inn.

She could see his figure in the distance, looking at first scarcely larger than a black lead pencil, but soon taking on the dimensions of a rather short, thick-set man. He remained stationary on the inn veranda for a few minutes, then, leaving it, he passed down the village street.

"It is some stranger from abroad, asking his way about," said Bidiane; "one of the numerous Comeau tribe, no doubt. Oh, I hope he will go on the drive to-night."

"Why, I believe he is coming here," she exclaimed, after another period of observation of the stranger's movements; "he is passing by all the houses. Yes, he is turning in by the cutting through the hill. Who can he be?"

Rose and Agapit, grown strangely silent, did not answer her, and, without thinking of examining their faces, she kept her eyes fixed on the man rapidly approaching them.

"He is neither old nor young," she said, vivaciously. "Yes, he is, too,—he is old. His hair is quite gray. He swaggers a little bit. I think he must be the captain of the beautiful stranger. There is an indefinable something about him that doesn't belong to a common sailor; don't you think so, Agapit?"

Her red head tilted itself sideways, yet she still kept a watchful eye on the newcomer. She could now see that he was quietly dressed in dark brown clothes, that his complexion was also brown, his eyes small and twinkling, his lips thick, and partly covered by a short, grizzled mustache. He wore on his head a white straw hat, that he took off when he neared the group.

His face was now fully visible, and there was a wild cry from Rose. "Ah, Charlitte, Charlitte,—you have come back!"

CHAPTER XIV.
BIDIANE RECEIVES A SHOCK.

Montgomery.

Bidiane flashed around upon her companions. Rose—pale, trembling, almost unearthly in a beauty from which everything earthly and material seemed to have been purged away—stood extending her hands to the wanderer, her only expression one of profound thanksgiving for his return.

Agapit, on the contrary, sat stock-still, his face convulsed with profound and bitter contempt, almost with hatred; and Bidiane, in speechless astonishment, stared from him to the others.

Charlitte was not dead,—he had returned; and Rose was not surprised,—she was even glad to see him! What did it mean, and where was Mr. Nimmo's share in this reunion? She clenched her hands, her eyes filled with despairing tears, and, in subdued anger, she surveyed the very ordinary-looking man, who had surrendered one of his brown hands to Rose, in pleased satisfaction.

"You are more stunning than ever, Rose," he said, coolly kissing her; "and who is this young lady?" and he pointed a sturdy forefinger at Bidiane, who stood in the background, trembling in every limb.

"It is Bidiane LeNoir, Charlitte, from up the Bay. Bidiane, come shake hands with my husband."

"I forbid," said Agapit, calmly. He had recovered himself, and, with a face as imperturbable as that of the sphinx, he now sat staring up into the air.

"Agapit," said Rose, pleadingly, "will you not greet my husband after all these years?"

"No," he said, "I will not," and coolly taking up his pipe he lighted it, turned away from them, and began to smoke.

Rose, with her blue eyes dimmed with tears, looked at her husband. "Do not be displeased. He will forgive in time; he has been a brother to me all the years that you have been away."

Charlitte understood Agapit better than she did, and, shrugging his shoulders as if to beg her not to distress herself, he busied himself with staring at Bidiane, whose curiosity and bewilderment had culminated in a kind of stupefaction, in which she stood surreptitiously pinching her arm in order to convince herself that this wonderful reappearance was real,—that the man sitting so quietly before her was actually the husband of her beloved Rose.

Charlitte's eyes twinkled mischievously, as he surveyed her. "Were you ever shipwrecked, young lady?" he asked.

Bidiane shuddered, and then, with difficulty, ejaculated, "No, never."

"I was," said Charlitte, unblushingly, "on a cannibal island. All the rest of the crew were eaten. I was the only one spared, and I was left shut up in a hut in a palm grove until six months ago, when a passing ship took me off and brought me to New York."

Bidiane, by means of a vigorous effort, was able to partly restore her mind to working order. Should she believe this man or not? She felt dimly that she did not like him, yet she could not resist Rose's touching, mute entreaty that she should bestow some recognition on the returned one. Therefore she said, confusedly, "Those cannibals, where did they live?"

"In the South Sea Islands, 'way yonder," and Charlitte's eyes seemed to twinkle into immense distance.

Rose was hanging her head. This recital pained her, and before Bidiane could again speak, she said, hurriedly, "Do not mention it. Our Lord and the blessed Virgin have brought you home. Ah! how glad Father Duvair will be, and the village."

"Good heavens!" said Charlitte. "Do you think I care for the village. I have come to see you."

For the first time Rose shrank from him, and Agapit brought down his eyes from the sky to glance keenly at him.

"Charlitte," faltered Rose, "there have been great changes since you went away. I—I—" and she hesitated, and looked at Bidiane.

Bidiane shrank behind a spruce-tree near which she was standing, and from its shelter looked out like a small red squirrel of an inquiring turn of mind. She felt that she was about to be banished, and in the present dazed state of her brain she dreaded to be alone.

Agapit's inexorable gaze sought her out, and, taking his pipe from his mouth, he sauntered over to her. "Wilt thou run away, little one? We may have something to talk of not fit for thy tender ears."

"Yes, I will," she murmured, shocked into unexpected submission by the suppressed misery of his voice. "I will be in the garden," and she darted away.

The coast was now clear for any action the new arrival might choose to take. His first proceeding was to stare hard at Agapit, as if he wished that he, too, would take himself away; but this Agapit had no intention of doing, and he smoked on imperturbably, pretending not to see Charlitte's irritated glances, and keeping his own fixed on the azure depths of the sky.

"You mention changes," said Charlitte, at last, turning to his wife. "What changes?"

"You have just arrived, you have heard nothing,—and yet there would be little to hear about me, and Sleeping Water does not change much,—yet—"

Charlitte's cool glance wandered contemptuously over that part of the village nearest them. "It is dull here,—as dull as the cannibal islands. I think moss would grow on me if I stayed."

"But it would break my heart to leave it," said Rose, desperately.

"I would take good care of you," he said, jocularly. "We would go to New Orleans. You would amuse yourself well. There are young men there,—plenty of them,—far smarter than the boys on the Bay."

Rose was in an agony. With frantic eyes she devoured the cool, cynical face of her husband, then, with a low cry, she fell on her knees before him. "Charlitte, Charlitte, I must confess."

Charlitte at once became intensely interested, and forgot to watch Agapit, who, however, got up, and, savagely biting his pipe, strolled to a little distance.

"I have done wrong, my husband," sobbed Rose.

Charlitte's eyes twinkled. Was he going to hear a confession of guilt that would make his own seem lighter?

"Forgive me, forgive me," she moaned. "My heart is glad that you have come back, yet, oh, my husband, I must tell you that it also cries out for another."

"For Agapit?" he said, kindly, stroking her clenched hands.

"No,—no, no, for a stranger. You know I never loved you as a woman should love her husband. I was so young when I married. I thought only of attending to my house. Then you went away; I was sorry, so sorry, when news came of your death, but my heart was not broken. Five years ago this stranger came, and I felt—oh, I cannot tell you—but I found what this love was. Then I had to send him away, but, although he was gone, he seemed to be still with me. I thought of him all the time,—the wind seemed to whisper his words in my ear as I walked. I saw his handsome face, his smiling eyes. I went daily over the paths his feet used to take. After a long, long time, I was able to tear him from my mind. Now I know that I shall never see him again, that I shall only meet him after I die, yet I feel that I belong to him, that he belongs to me. Oh, my husband, this is love, and is it right that, feeling so, I should go with you?"

"Who is this man?" asked Charlitte. "What is he called?"

Rose winced. "Vesper is his name; Vesper Nimmo,—but do not let us talk of him. I have put him from my mind."

"Did he make love to you?"

"Oh, yes; but let us pass that over,—it is wicked to talk of it now."

Charlitte, who was not troubled with any delicacy of feeling, was about to put some searching and crucial questions to her, but forbore, moved, despite himself, by the anguish and innocence of the gaze bent upon him. "Where is he now?"

"In Paris. I have done wrong, wrong," and she again buried her face in her hands, and her whole frame shook with emotion. "Having had one husband, it would have been better to have thought only of him. I do not think one should marry again, unless—"

"Nonsense," said Charlitte, abruptly. "The fellow should have married you. He got tired, I guess. By this time he's had half a dozen other fancies."

Rose shrank from him in speechless horror, and, seeing it, Charlitte made haste to change the subject of conversation. "Where is the boy?"

"He is with him," she said, hurriedly.

"That was pretty cute in you," said Charlitte, with a good-natured vulgar laugh. "You were afraid I'd come home and take him from you,—you always were a little fool, Rose. Get up off the grass, and sit down, and don't distress yourself so. This isn't a hanging matter, and I'm not going to bully you; I never did."

"No, never," she said, with a fresh outburst of tears. "You were always kind, my husband."

"I think our marriage was all a mistake," he said, good-humoredly, "but we can't undo it. I knew you never liked me,—if you had, I might never—that is, things might have been different. Tell me now when that fool, Agapit, first began to set you against me?"

"He has not set me against you, my husband; he rarely speaks of you."

"When did you first find out that I wasn't dead?" said Charlitte, persistently; and Rose, who was as wax in his hands, was soon saying, hesitatingly, "I first knew that he did not care for you when Mr. Nimmo went away."

"How did you know?"

"He broke your picture, my husband,—oh, do not make me tell what I do not wish to."

"How did he break it?" asked Charlitte, and his face darkened.

"He struck it with his hand,—but I had it mended."

"He was mad because I was keeping you from the other fellow. Then he told you that you had better give him the mitten?"

"Yes," said Rose, sighing heavily, and sitting mute, like a prisoner awaiting sentence.

"You have not done quite right, Rose," said her husband, mildly, "not quite right. It would have been better for you to have given that stranger the go by. He was only amusing himself. Still, I can't blame you. You're young, and mighty fine looking, and you've kept on the straight through your widowhood. I heard once from some sailors how you kept the young fellows off, and you always said you'd had a good husband. I shall never forget that you called me good, Rose, for there are some folks that think I am pretty bad."

"Then they are evil folks," she said, tremulously; "are we not all sinners? Does not our Lord command us to forgive those who repent?"

A curious light came into Charlitte's eyes, and he put his tongue in his cheek. Then he went on, calmly. "I'm on my way from Turk's Island to Saint John, New Brunswick,—I've got a cargo of salt to unload there, and, 'pon my word, I hadn't a thought of calling here until I got up in the Bay, working towards Petit Passage. I guess it was old habit that made me run for this place, and I thought I'd give you a call, and see if you were moping to death, and wanted to go away with me. If you do, I'll be glad to have you. If not, I'll not bother you."

A deadly faintness came over Rose. "Charlitte, are you not sorry for your sin? Ah! tell me that you repent. And will you not talk to Father Duvair? So many quiet nights I think of you and pray that you may understand that you are being led into this wickedness. That other woman,—she is still living?"

"What other woman? Oh, Lord, yes,—I thought that fool Agapit had had spies on me."

Rose was so near fainting that she only half comprehended what he said.

"I wish you'd come with me," he went on, jocosely. "If you happened to worry I'd send you back to this dull little hole. You're not going to swoon, are you? Here, put your head on this," and he drew up to her a small table on which Bidiane had been playing solitaire. "You used not to be delicate."

"I am not now," she whispered, dropping her head on her folded arms, "but I cannot hold myself up. When I saw you come, I thought it was to say you were sorry. Now—"

"Come, brace up, Rose," he said, uneasily. "I'll sit down beside you for awhile. There's lots of time for me to repent yet," and he chuckled shortly and struck his broad chest with his fist. "I'm as strong as a horse; there's nothing wrong with me, except a little rheumatism, and I'll outgrow that. I'm only fifty-two, and my father died at ninety. Come on, girl,—don't cry. I wish I hadn't started this talk of taking you away. You'd be glad of it, though, if you'd go. Listen till I tell you what a fine place New Orleans is—"

Rose did not listen to him. She still sat with her flaxen head bowed on her arms, that rested on the little table. She was a perfect picture of silent, yet agitated distress.

"You are not praying, are you?" asked her husband, in a disturbed manner. "I believe you are. Come, I'll go away."

For some time there was no movement in the half prostrated figure, then the head moved slightly, and Charlitte caught a faint sentence, "Repent, my husband."

"Yes, I repent," he said, hastily. "Good Lord, I'll do anything. Only cheer up and let me out of this."

The grief-stricken Rose pushed back the hair from her tear-stained face and slowly raised her head from her arms.

It was only necessary for her to show that face to her husband. So impressed was it with the stamp of intense anguish of mind, of grief for his past delinquencies of conduct, of a sorrow nobly, quietly borne through long years, that even he—callous, careless, and thoughtless—was profoundly moved.

For a long time he was silent. Then his lip trembled and he turned his head aside. "'Pon my word, Rose,—I didn't think you'd fret like this. I'll do better; let me go now."

One of her hands stole with velvety clasp to his brown wrists, and while the gentle touch lasted he sat still, listening with an averted face to the words whispered in his ear.

Agapit, in the meantime, was walking in the garden with Bidiane. He had told her all that she wished to know with regard to the recreant husband, and in a passionate, resentful state of mind she was storming to and fro, scarcely knowing what she said.

"It is abominable, treacherous!—and we stand idly here. Go and drive him away, Agapit. He should not be allowed to speak to our spotless Rose. I should think that the skies would fall—and I spoke to him, the traitor! Go, Agapit,—I wish you would knock him down."

Agapit, with an indulgent glance, stood at a little distance from her, softly murmuring, from time to time, "You are very young, Bidiane."

"Young! I am glad that I am young, so that I can feel angry. You are stolid, unfeeling. You care nothing for Rose. I shall go myself and tell that wretch to his face what I think of him."

She was actually starting, but Agapit caught her gently by the arm. "Bidiane, restrain yourself," and drawing her under the friendly shade of a solitary pine-tree that had been left when the garden was made, he smoothed her angry cheeks and kissed her hot forehead.

"You condone his offence,—you, also, some day, will leave me for some woman," she gasped.

"This from you to me," he said, quietly and proudly, "when you know that we Acadiens are proud of our virtue,—of the virtue of our women particularly; and if the women are pure, it is because the men are so."

"Rose cannot love that demon," exclaimed Bidiane.

"No, she does not love him, but she understands what you will understand when you are older,—the awful sacredness of the marriage tie. Think of one of the sentences that she read to us last Sunday from Thomas à Kempis: 'A pure heart penetrates heaven and hell.' She has been in a hell of suffering herself. I think when in it she wished her husband were dead. Her charity is therefore infinite towards him. Her sins of thought are equal in her chastened mind to his sins of body."

"But you will not let her go away with him?"

"She will not wish to go, my treasure. She talks to him, and repent, repent, is, I am sure, the burden of her cry. You do not understand that under her gentleness is a stern resolve. She will be soft and kind, yet she would die rather than live with Charlitte or surrender her child to him."

"But he may wish to stay here," faltered Bidiane.

"He will not stay with her, chérie. She is no longer a girl, but a woman. She is not resentful, yet Charlitte has sinned deeply against her, and she remembers,—and now I must return to her. Charlitte has little delicacy of feeling, and may stay too long."

"Wait a minute, Agapit,—is it her money that he is after?"

"No, little one, he is not mercenary. He would not take money from a woman. He also would not give her any unless she begged him to do so. I think that his visit is a mere caprice that, however, if humored, would degenerate into a carrying away of Rose,—and now au revoir."

Bidiane, in her excited, overstrained condition of mind, bestowed one of her infrequent caresses on him, and Agapit, in mingled surprise and gratification, found a pair of loving arms flung around his neck, and heard a frantic whisper: "If you ever do anything bad, I shall kill you; but you will not, for you are good."

"Thank you. If I am faithless you may kill me," and, reluctantly leaving her, he strode along the summit of the slight hill on which the house stood, until he caught sight of the tableau on the lawn.

Charlitte was just leaving his wife. His head was hanging on his breast; he looked ashamed of himself, and in haste to be gone, yet he paused and cast an occasional stealthy and regretful glance at Rose, who, with a face aglow with angelic forgiveness, seemed to be bestowing a parting benediction on him.

The next time that he lifted his head, his small, sharp eyes caught sight of Agapit, whereupon he immediately snatched his hand from Rose, and hastily began to descend the hill towards the river.

Rose remained standing, and silently watched him. She did not look at Agapit,—her eyes were riveted on her husband. Something within her seemed to cry out as his feet carried him down the hill to the brink of the inexorable stream, where the bones of so many of his countrymen lay.

"Adieu, my husband," she called, suddenly and pleadingly, "thou wilt not forget."

Charlitte paused just before he reached the bridge, and, little dreaming that his feet were never to cross its planks, he swept a glance over the peaceful Bay, the waiting boat, and the beautiful ship. Then he turned and waved his hand to his wife, and for one instant, they remembered afterwards, he put a finger on his breast, where lay a crucifix that she had just given him.

"Adjheu, Rose," he called, loudly, "I will remember." At the same minute, however, that the smile of farewell lighted up his face, an oath slipped to his lips, and he stepped back from the bridge.

CHAPTER XV.
THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER GOES AWAY WITHOUT
HER CAPTAIN.

"Repentance is the relinquishment of any practice from the conviction that it has offended God. Sorrow, fear, and anxiety are properly not parts but adjuncts of repentance, yet they are too closely connected with it to be easily separated."

—Rambler.

Charlitte did not plan to show himself at all in Sleeping Water. He possessed a toughened conscience and moral fibre calculated to stand a considerably heavy strain, yet some blind instinct warned him that he had better seek no conversation with his friends of former days.

For this reason he had avoided the corner on his way to Rose's house, but he had not been able to keep secret the news of his arrival. Some women at the windows had recognized him, and a few loungers at the corner had strolled down to his boat, and had conversed with the sailors, who, although Norwegians, yet knew enough English to tell their captain's name, which, according to a custom prevailing among Acadiens, was simply the French name turned into English. Charlitte de Forêt had become Charlitte Forrest.

Emmanuel de la Rive was terribly excited. He had just come from the station with the afternoon mail, and, on hearing that Charlitte was alive, and had actually arrived, he had immediately put himself at the head of a contingent of men, who proposed to go up to the cottage and ascertain the truth of the case. If it were so,—and it must be so,—what a wonderful, what an extraordinary occurrence! Sleeping Water had never known anything like this, and he jabbered steadily all the way up to the cottage.

Charlitte saw them coming,—this crowd of old friends, headed by the mail-driver in the red jacket, and he looked helplessly up at Rose.

"Come back," she called; "come and receive your friends with me."

Charlitte, however, glanced at Agapit, and preferred to stay where he was, and in a trice Emmanuel and the other men and boys were beside him, grasping his hands, vociferating congratulations on his escape from death, and plying him with inquiries as to the precise quarter of the globe in which the last few years of his existence had been passed.

Charlitte, unable to stave off the questions showered upon him, was tortured by a desire to yield to his rough and sailorlike sense of humor, and entertain himself for a few minutes at the expense of his friends by regaling them with his monstrous yarns of shipwreck and escape from the cannibal islands.

Something restrained him. He glanced up at Rose, and saw that she had lost hope of his returning to her. She was gliding down the hill towards him,—a loving, anxious, guardian angel.

He could not tell lies in her presence. "Come, boys," he said, with coarse good nature. "Come on to my ship, I'll take you all aboard."

Emmanuel, in a perfect intoxication of delight and eager curiosity, crowded close to Charlitte, as the throng of men and boys turned and began to surge over the bridge, and the hero of the moment, his attention caught by the bright jacket, singled Emmanuel out for special attention, and even linked his arm in his as they went.

Bidiane, weary of her long stay in the garden, at that minute came around the corner of the house on a reconnoitring expedition. Her brown eyes took in the whole scene,—Rose hurrying down the hill, Agapit standing silently on it, and the swarm of men surrounding the newcomer like happy buzzing bees, while they joyfully escorted him away from the cottage.

This was the picture for an instant before her, then simultaneously with a warning cry from Agapit,—"The bridge, mon Dieu! Do not linger on it; you are a strong pressure!"—there was a sudden crash, a brief and profound silence, then a great splashing, accompanied by shouts and cries of astonishment.

The slight rustic structure had given way under the unusually heavy weight imposed upon it, and a score or two of the men of Sleeping Water were being subjected to a thorough ducking.

However, they were all used to the water, their lives were partly passed on the sea, and they were all accomplished swimmers. As one head after another came bobbing up from the treacherous river, it was greeted with cries and jeers from dripping figures seated on the grass, or crawling over the muddy banks.

Célina ran from the house, and Jovite from the stable, both shrieking with laughter. Only Agapit looked grave, and, snatching a hammock from a tree, he ran down the hill to the place where Rose stood with clasped hands.

"Where is Charlitte?" she cried, "and Emmanuel?—they were close together; I do not see them."